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Grenzo Prison (Now with Doomsday!)

Commander / EDH BR (Rakdos) Infinite Combo Prison Scry Stax

CappnPiggy

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Creature (36)

Land (33)

Instant (7)

Enchantment (4)

Commander (1)

Commander: Grenzo, Dungeon Warden

Artifact (12)

Sorcery (7)

Howdy planeswalkers! Grab your harmonicas, put on your stripiest jumpsuit, and prepare your nastiest grub, cause today we're going to prison!

Grenzo, Dungeon Warden is an interesting guy to build around. On the one hand, letting Meteor Golem, Sheoldred, Whispering One and Duplicant loose from the bottom of your library is incredibly strong. But on the other hand, you can't run any tutors without shuffling your library, which defeats the whole purpose of scry/tucking in the deck. So why bother?

Because Grenzo is a monster and loves making people suffer. When I initially set out to build this deck, I wanted to make a BR Aggro deck that reanimated big boys for free all the time and got value from death triggers. Then I realized something important: there's a lot of weak statted creatures that cost a lot of mana but have wild ETB Effects, like Mindclaw Shaman. And with the power of Ashnod's Altar and anything that tucks cards from the yard to the bottom of the library, you have a lot of options to keep playing those creatures without the fear of (most) counterspells.

The other reason I decided to play a control deck with Grenzo is that it's super easy to go infinite with him, and the easiest way to ensure I can do those funny combos is to make sure nobody else is playing the game. The absolute game ender with Grenzo, Dungeon Warden is Ashnod's Altar + The Cauldron of Eternity . With those three pieces in place, you can pretty much loop any effect infinitely. In the absence of those two pieces, you can also use Priest of Gix/Priest of Urabrask with either Altar and a tuck effect or Cauldron and a sac outlet to get infinite mana, which gives you an infinitely large Grenzo or infinitely big Torment of Hailfire.

Another way this deck can easily kill is Goblin Charbelcher. We're a little light on lands, but that's a small price to pay for being able to reorder the bottom of your library however you like and deal oodles of damage in the process. Especially in the late game, when you've sculpted your library exactly how you want it (and perhaps removed most of the lands with Solemn Simulacrum), Charbelcher is a very strong card in Grenzo's 99.

As for the prison aspect of the deck, we're running a lot of creature based destruction, hand disruption, and a handful of Stax cards. Primaris Eliminator, Meteor Golem, Goblin Settler, Duplicant, and Ingot Chewer are destruction on sticks. Thoughtseize, Grief, Sadistic Hypnotist, Mindclaw Shaman, and Kolaghan's Command are all there to patrol hands for Yard Hate and Combo Pieces. Sheoldred, Whispering One, Tergrid, God of Fright  , Magus of the Abyss, Ob Nixilis, Unshackled, Opposition Agent, and Wandering Archaic   are all pushing our opponents one step closer to walking away from the game.

The non-creature Stax pieces in this deck include Painful Quandary, Dictate of Erebos, Oppression, and God-Pharaoh's Statue. Contamination and Magus of the Moon both run resource denial on our opponents, and we don't really mind the color of our mana since Grenzo doesn't need colored mana to activate his ability.

So what stops Grenzo from Grenzing all over the opposition? Graveyard Hate like Grafdigger's Cage, Rest in Peace, and Bojuka Bog will prevent you from utilizing what is essentially your other deck. Cards like Damping Matrix or Cursed Totem shut Grenzo off entirely. And of course, like most mortal things, Grenzo dies to removal. So how do we prevent these things from happening to us?

Witchbane Orb stops any targeted graveyard removal like Bojuka Bog. Unfortunately it doesn't stop other forms of hate, but that's what Feed the Swarm and Meteor Golem are for. The Orb also has the upside of protecting us from Fireballs and Thoughtseizes, so that's nice too. Additionally, Ingot Chewer is around to deal with any artifact based hate. Cloak and Dagger, Swiftfoot Boots, Hammer of Nazahn, and Mishra, Tamer of Mak Fawa all help protect Grezo from our opponents (deserved) removal.

And that's pretty much that! There's cards in the deck that haven't been mentioned, but I'm sure you're smart enough to know what they do ;) Thank you for reading! Suggestions are welcome!

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Updates Add

Two bigguns — Dec. 22, 2022
Edit

Howdy again! I've made two major changes to the list above, one aesthetic and one mechanical.

Aesthetically, I've updated it to show all the cards I own in paper for this deck (I just completed it!) because I'm a dandy little lad.

Mechanically, I've added Doomsday, which I never planned on doing but the Junji Ito art looked so good I just had to.

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98% Casual

Competitive